Teach a child to decode words, not to guess

One of the worst things a parent or a teacher can tell a child is to guess when trying to read a word.  This “guessing” can take many forms.

• Look at the pictures. What word makes sense?
• The word begins with a “c.” Now what word beginning with a letter “c” would work here?
• Yes, it’s a big word. But you can figure out the first part, “con.”  So what words do you know that begin with “con”?  What one of those works here?

All of these guessing strategies set the reader up for failure.  Sooner or later there won’t be any pictures to give visual hints.  Sooner or later the child will know many “c” words, too many to guess about them all.  Sooner or later the child will encounter two- and three- and four-syllable words which make no sense in the context of the reading passage.

Instead, what a teacher should do is to teach the phonics code.  Teach that sounds are represented by letters.  Teach that letters combine to form words.  This is the surest strategy to create confident readers.

If your child is sounding out the first letter of words and then guessing at the rest, your child is probably going to be a poor reader.  Go back to teaching him or her phonics so your child has a systematic approach to figuring out words.  Give your child the gift of confident reading and a better future.